Russ, Solo’s father and Silo Seventeen’s IT shadow, hid his son during the violence and was killed outside the refuge.
Russ worked with computers under Jerry and became the IT head's shadow and second-in-command in silo seventeen. As the violence began, Jimmy and his mother tried to reach him on level thirty-four. Russ shot Yani to free Jimmy, locked himself and his son inside the server room, and opened the hidden refuge through a concealed lever. He searched surveillance images for Jimmy's mother and said someone was trying to shut the silo down after opening its airlock. He gave Jimmy the key, taught him to use the radio, and ordered him to admit only his parents.
Over the radio, Russ directed Deputy Hines to stop traffic because people were being crushed, reported a breach at the top, and told Jimmy he was going to find his mother. Returning to the hall outside the steel door, he warned Jimmy that the men there would kill him if he opened it. Russ fought back when they hit him, but a security guard shot him dead outside the locked door. He had also answered Silo One's first call as seventeen's IT shadow and ended it by breaking the connection.
Jimmy remembered his father turning chores and tinkering into Projects, neatly arranging electronic components, building computers and a calculator, and lighting the family birthday candle. As Solo, he has continued to credit his father with hiding him to protect him during the silo's collapse into violence. The refuge became the means by which the son survived long after the father died.
Deceased IT shadow and second-in-command of silo seventeen; his protection of Jimmy made his son’s long survival possible.
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